It's OFFICIAL! The roles of Brandon Capwell and Chip Castillo have been cast! This week, RTSB welcomes Justin Hartley (ex-Fox, PSNS) as Brandon and Jay Hernandez (Six Degrees/ Crazy/Beautiful) as Chip Castillo. Though both are returning to town for Cruz's funeral, there's a bit of mystery surrounding each character.............like where the hell have they been?

"Chip has been taking care of his mother, Victoria Lane, who has been recovering from a terrible car accident," says juniorz, RTSB's creator & exec producer, "Victoria will be back for the funeral as well, but her casting is being kept under wraps until her debut."

This is not the first primetime/film star that has taken a role on RTSB recently- Jared Leto also recently began appearing as the mysterious Steve Hall last month. For now, however, it's been revealed that the plans for Chip are short-term at the moment, though that could change down the line. Hernandez and the new Victoria Lane debut on Wednesday, March 21. Both roles are recurring.

So what's the story with Brandon? Last we saw, he was a sweet pre-teen boy, loving and accepting of his family and friends without question. Any chance that's who we're getting back this time around?

"Brandon's done a lot of growing up. He has recently come into a considerable amount of money, since he turned 25," states juniorz, "He's grown into quite a different man than he was a boy. It's going to be deja vous at the Capwell house, as though Channing Jr. has come back from the grave. I'm really excited to start writing for him and glad that I held off bringing him on until now. The more I thought about the character, the more ideas I was able to come up with for story. Channing's presence was one that was always felt on SB (er, real-SB anyway) and I think it's about time that presence was felt on RTSB."

No specifics were available at this time about Hartley's premiere date, other than it is sometime this week. Mr. Hartley has been placed on contract status, effective immediately (see updated cast list).

In other news, as what probably will come as no surprise to readers, Matt Cedeno is OUT as Rafe Castillo. Though Rafe was prominently featured in early episodes, we haven't seen too much of him of late, as his story sort of fizzled out.

"It's no secret that I changed course with Lily when RTSB started. Unfortunately, a consequence of that was Rafe's storyline went out the window. I wasn't overly pleased with the Rafe/Samantha pairing so I backburnered it. There's lots of story planned for the series, but Rafe doesn't fit in too much with that. That's not to speak ill of Matt Cedeno or his portrayal, which I was quite happy with. But the character just doesn't work. Truly, he never did......"

Expect Cedeno to stick around for another couple of weeks. He's set to last appear in late March/early April.

Make sure you check out Return to Santa Barbara THIS WEEK for Hernandez & Hartley's debuts. And, of course, the NEW Victoria Lane......